Long term care facilities for the aged, commonly referred to as nursing homes, have developed a position of prominence in the care of the aged in modern societies. The nursing home environment is completely different from a hospital environment; this uniqueness of the nursing home environment has been discussed in "Designing The Open Nursing Home" by Joseph A. Koncelik; Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Inc. of Stoudsburg, Pennsylvania, 1976. Because of this uniqueness, it has been determined that the type of care given to an aged person in a nursing home--as well as the duration of that care--should be reflected in the physical environment where that care is provided. There are special requirements for architecture, interiors, furnishings, and products that cannot be met by diluting the hospital environment concept.
While the understanding of the importance of environment has increased, remaining yet unchallenged and unsolved in the prior art is the problem of appropriate designing of furnishings, products, etcetera making up the personal space in room settings where aged people spend the majority of their time.
Aging is a gradual--even imperceptible--process, and all aging people adapt to the changes the aging process brings about. With aging, gradual adaptation allows a lingering question to persist regarding one's limitations and capabilities so that as people grow older they find themselves constantly readjusting and challenging their own self concept. While many aging individuals find themselves overextended in high stress situations, an aged individual living in a nursing home may find himself or herself underextended--that is not sufficiently challenged, stimulated, or encouraged to perform. An acceleration of the aging process may thus actually occur as a result of an environment which does not sufficiently challenge, stimulate, or enncourage. Thus, a nuring home environment must be provided so that it is supportive, but not so supportive that necessary challenge is reduced. The environment must also reflect the individual aged person's own personal control over the physical products within it.
In order to provide stimulation, a sense of control, and challenge within the close environment of a nursing home the following criteria should be taken into account: Safety problems and hazards should be ameliorated. Sufficient space should be provided around furnishings and other objects in the personal space environment to provide accessability to both the ambulatory and nonambulatory users. The personal space should promote--not impede--independently initiated transfers of the elderly resident from surface to surface, surface to wheelchair, etcetera. All routine functions of self care and maintenance should be independently initiated and supported by the structures within the personal space. Room arrangements should allow for the exercise of personal preference in furnishings on the part of the resident. A sense of personal ownership should prevail over the room space and the objects within it. The personal space must support a wide range of activities--especially movement around the space--without impeding accessability and with sufficient physical security to promote use of space without a sense of fear. Sound and light must be carefully managed and modulated to allow for maximum accuracy of discrimination of objects and communications by the aged resident, as well as appropriate background levels.
According to the present invention a method of providing interior space room divisions for a nursing home, and furnishings utilized in nursing home design, have been provided which take into account all the criteria discussed above to provide a nursing home environment providing maximized physical and psychological desirability for aged residents of the nursing home. The environment provides safety, comfort, control, and a sense of personal ownership for the aged residents, and accomplishes this in a manner that makes construction and renovation of nursing homes much less time consuming and costly.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for providing interior space room divisions for a nursing home is supplied for providing safety, comfort, control, and sense of personal ownership for aging people to be occupying the nursing home. The method utilizes a bed assembly, a plurality of wall panels (distinct from the permanent walls of the nursing home), and a plurality of miscellaneous clothing and article supporting and enclosing structures (such as dressers, desks, personalized bulletin boards, and closet units).
In practicing the method, the wall panels are attached together to provide at least a portion of the physical definition of the room environment. The bed is integrated with the wall panels and the miscellaneous structures so that the bed does not detract from the functioning of the miscellaneous structures. The miscellaneous structures (such as dressers, desks, closets, etcetera) are supported on the wall panels so that they are spaced from the ground at least a distance sufficient to provide clearance for the toeboards of wheelchairs to provide maximum mobility for nonambulatory, as well as ambulatory, residents or guests. The corners of all the miscellaneous structures and the bed assembly are rounded, and sufficient clearance is provided for a wheelchair between the bed assembly and any miscellaneous structures along both sides and the foot of the bed assembly. Wiring for electrically consuming components disposed within the room environment is passed through the wall panels to an electrical outlet remote from the room environment so that no wiring extends on the floor of the room environment. Preferably, one of the wall panels comprises a headboard-wall panel disposed at the head of the bed assembly, and spaced from the nursing home permanent walls (both the exterior and, --if they exist--interior), and a linear light source is attached to the headboard panel mounted above the bed assembly so that light shines on at least areas of the bed assembly adjacent the headboard-wall panel across substantially the entire width thereof. All bed hardware, and other sharp or hard components associated with the bed assembly, are covered with cushioning structures operatively attached to the bed assembly so that an aging person falling so as to impact the side of the bed assembly will have their fall cushioned so as to minimize the chances of injury.
A pair of bolsters elongated in parallel directions of elongation preferably are provided, one disposed on either side of the bed mattress. Each bolster is formed of material sufficiently rigid so that a person may sit thereon without significantly deforming it, yet it is soft enough to cushion the fall of an individual thereon so as to minimize injury. The bolsters are mounted with respect to the mattress so that a top surface of each of the bolsters may be substantially even with the top of the mattress. Such height also is chosen so as to correspond to the height of a seat of a wheelchair.
One of the miscellaneous structures preferably comprises a dresser having at least two side-by-side drawers. The dresser is positioned, mounted on a wall panel, so that a person in a wheelchair can approach the dresser head-on, but toward one side thereof, and open the side-by-side drawer on the opposite side as the wheelchair without having to move the wheelchair backwards.
A rail support is provided along at least one side of the bed assembly. The rail support, which is preferably mounted on the bolsters, assists transfer from a wheelchair to the bed assembly while not preventing access to the bed assembly. The rail may be collapsed completely out of the way if desired.
Further miscellaneous structures provided for mounting on wall panels include a fold-down desk and a unit for storing clothing or other articles. A personalized bulletin board, mirror, and like articles also are adapted to be supported by the panels, and at least one of the panels preferably has a light source located at the top thereof for directing light upwardly therefrom to provide indirect, background illumination. A tray is provided that may be supported by the bed assembly rails, or may be stored in a convenient location covering the bed toeboard.
It is the primary object of the present invention to provide room divisions for a nursing home and furnishings integrated therewith for providing safety, comfort, control, and sense of personal ownership for aging people to be occupying the nursing home. This and other objects of the invention will become clear from an inspection of the detailed description of the invention, and from the appended claims.